I now found they were speaking of acquiring the French
language—­a matter the difficulty of which
they thought had been absurdly overrated. Then
the second Harry: ’Of course it is!
Suppose you’re in a Caffy, and want some wine;
you just call to the waiter, and you say—­’

First Harry (who seems to think that the secret has
already been communicated): ’Dear me; yes,
to be sure—­to be sure! I never thought
of that. A Caffy?’

Second Harry: ‘Oh, Lor’ bless yer,
it comes as easy as—­that! Well, you
go say to the fellow—­just as you would say
to an English waiter—­“Don-ny maw”—­(pause)—­“dee
Vinne."’

First Harry (amazed): ‘So that’s
the way! Dear, dear me! Vinne!’

Second Harry: ‘O’ course it is the
way! Suppose you want yer way to the railway,
you just go ask for the “Sheemin—­dee—­Fur.”
Fur, you know, means “rail” in
French—­Sheemin is “the road,”
you know.’

Again lost in wonder at the simplicity of what is
popularly supposed to be so thorny, the other Harry
could only repeat:

‘So that’s it! What is it, again?
Sheemin—­’

’Sheemin dee Fur.’

Later, in the fuss and bustle of the ‘eating
hall,’ this ‘Harry,’ more obstreperous
than ever by contact with the foreigners, again attracted
my attention. Everywhere I heard his voice; he
was rampant.

’"Eel-pie!” says I. “Blow your
Fo,” says I, and didn’t he grin
like an ape? I declare I thought I’d have
split when he came again with his “Eel Fo!"’

He was then in his element. Everything new to
him was ‘a guy,’ or ’so rum,’
or ‘the queerest go you ever.’ One
of the two declared that, ’in all his experience
and in all his life he had never heard sich a lingo
as French;’ and further, that ’one of their
light porters at Bucklersbury would eat half a dozen
of them Frenchmen for a bender.’

This strange, grotesque dialogue I repeat textually
almost; and, it may be conceived, it was entertaining
in a high degree. ’Sheemin dee Fur’
was the exact phonetic pronunciation, and the whole
scene lingers pleasantly in the memory.